Burned Marshmallows
by Procyonid
Summary: He didn't see the attack coming; the Assassin must have struck him from behind. There was blinding pain and then nothing. When he woke, he was her prisoner.


Psionics have a distinct odour, like burned marshmallows. Prins was only a child when the invaders came but he remembers that smell, charcoal and smoke and burning sugar, lingering at the edges of his memory. Odd that psionics can somehow remind him of the time before all this, before the aliens, before ADVENT, when Prins was just a child roasting marshmallows with his family.

He clings to that memory when the sunlight fades and leaves his cell in darkness, and most especially when the Assassin tortures him. "Interrogation" is not the word for it. The probe must be tuned specifically to him; it gives off a high whine that he can feel more than hear. It vibrates in his bones.

He doesn't remember being captured. They were on some mission or another. They all blurred together in his memory: hack this, retrieve that, save this person, kill that one. More clearly than their objective, he remembers her. The Assassin coalesced out of the darkness and laughed at them. She effortlessly danced between their bullets. They could have been shooting at thin air. Pins jumped at every shadow, his nerves on edge. He didn't see the attack coming; the Assassin must have struck him from behind. There was blinding pain and then nothing. When he woke, he was her prisoner.

He tries to be stoic, brave, a true soldier of XCOM. But then the pain surges over him like a tidal wave and when the Assassin demands information, all he can do is beg for it to stop. He's a grunt. He shoots whoever he's ordered to. The less he knows, the better for everyone. But the Assassin's not satisfied. She assumes they have a schedule. Patrol routes. She thinks they do anything besides fly to wherever they're needed. He can't give her what she wants, but she demands answers anyway.

"Where is the Avenger?"

 _-i don't know-_

"Where is your Commander?"

 _-oh god please i don't know-_

She asks for names, coordinates, broadcast frequencies. He can't give them to her; he breathes in that burned marshmallow smell and tries to remember the blue sky, the crackling fire, his sister's laugh-

-and the probe kicks something in the back of his brain, he's back on the Avenger trying to get Phoenix's attention. The Assassin digs harder. She'll find something. Even if it's background chatter or something on a viewscreen, if he heard or saw something, anything that would give them away-

At some point, he blacks out. Usually he wakes in the cell, with no memory in between, as though he simply materialized there. Every part of him aches. When the trooper brings his meal (barely adequate: clean water, edible if tasteless bread, and something pink that he can't quite call "meat"), Prins can only lie there and whimper. The food goes cold and rubbery before he can muster up the strength to eat it.

Sometimes he wakes still strapped to the chair, with the Assassin looming over him and more than eager to finish their session. Half the time it's not even her; it's the middle of the night and he's alone in his cell, with the nightmares and the memory of pain.

* * *

Before one session, the Assassin speaks to him as she's strapping him down. "They will not come to save you." Her katana, as always, is at the ready. She could gut him in the blink of an eye, if she wanted to. At first, Prins feared death at her hands. Then, when it became apparent that she would not kill him right away, he caught himself fearing life more.

Prins has no strength to defy her. He lets her rant..

"They will leave you here to rot," hisses the Assassin. Prins can smell the burned marshmallow aura that always follows her. "I will squeeze your mind dry, and when you are of no more use to me you will be discarded."

She doesn't even ask any questions. The probe starts humming, and there's only pain.

* * *

Days pass. Through his window he watches the sky fade from night to glowing orange, to purest blue, and back again. No one speaks to him but the Assassin. The Commander can't have forgotten about him. XCOM wouldn't abandon one of their own.

He's delirious. In the night he mumbles words that are nonsense even to him. He wakes and can't remember where he is; he's on the Avenger, and he hears laughter drifting through the halls; he died back there in that abandoned street, and he's in Hell. He can't endure this for much longer.

But he endures it anyway.

* * *

The Assassin hasn't dragged him out in nearly a month now. That's what he thinks, although it's hard to keep track of time in here. There's always the slim chance that she's captured someone more interesting. That thought seems much less hopeful when he realizes that "more interesting" could be Shen, or Bradford, or-

He hears pops, like gunfire in the distance. A sudden stab of clarity; the Assassin has no more use for this place and she is having her prisoners executed. He's next. When the door slides open he can't even protest. He's slung across someone's shoulder like a sack of grain. In a few steps they're outside; the daylight stings his eyes and on the wind is a scent like burned marshmallows. There's a flare of purple and then out of the corner of his eye he sees Phoenix burn an ADVENT trooper with her mind.

The realization hits him like a bucket of cold water thrown in his face. Above him is the Skyranger and around him are his fellow XCOM operatives.

His rescuer waves to the Skyranger and grabs hold of the rope that drops. Everything's getting hazy. Someone straps him into a seat. Prins' head sags; he feels like if he wasn't strapped down, he would simply float away.

"Hang in there," says a familar voice. It's Zero, and slung across his back is the Assassin's katana. He catches Prins staring at the weapon. "Don't worry," says Zero, patting the hilt. "We took care of her. You're not gonna see her ever again."

It's all too good to be true. He's going to wake up any moment, and he'll be back in his cell with the Assassin looming over him.

Prins watches the ADVENT prison shrink into the distance beneath them. It's gone. He doesn't wake up.

He's free.


End file.
